What a catastrophe.... Especially for the Confederates, who had much less people to start with.Chapter 112: A Tally of the Dead
“It is easy for historians to mark points on a calendar and say that date or this day ended some conflict or a treaty was ratified. In truth, the wounds of conflicts can last far in advance of when they supposedly ended. For the Great American War, it was no different. Though when the war ended by decree on July 25th 1865, the nation had been fighting for four years, enduring blood and death before any formal peace treaty was signed. Even up until the final pen strokes at Havana, blood was being spilt in skirmishes and the bitter feuds from unresolved tensions which would mark 1866 on either side of the new borders in North America.
The casualties of the war were, even to today, staggering. It was the bloodiest conflict the United States had engaged in up to that point. Roughly 1.6 million men would participate in the war from the Loyal States at one point or another, while another estimated 750,000 would fight for the Confederacy in total. As many as 2,500,000 men would bear arms for the whole conflict. When one includes the 300,000 Anglo-Canadian soldiers who fought on land and sea at one point or another in the conflict, the true scale of the Great American War becomes clear. Almost three million men would fight, but a quarter of them would never return home.
While arriving at exact numbers of dead is difficult, official returns do offer at least some sense of the vast scale of death unleashed on North America from the Pacific slope to the Bay of Fundy. Approximately 140,000 men from the North would die in battle, while another 250,000 died of disease during the whole course of the war. Another 50,000 would perish in British or Confederate prison camps. While these numbers cannot be found to be completely accurate, and modern scholarship argues to this day over the number, it may be reliably estimated that the United States suffered upwards of 450,000 men who died in uniform.
The Confederate States suffered no less heavily. Through a combination of aggressive commanders, poorer infrastructure and other logistics issues, the Confederacy would have a larger proportion of battlefield deaths in comparison to the United States. Approximately 100,000 men died in combat fighting for the Confederacy between 1861 and 1865, while a further 29,000 died in Union prison camps. A further 166,000 are known to have died of accident or disease while in Southern service. In total, 295,000 men died while wearing Confederate gray.
Though most scholars of the Great American War have focused solely on the Union or Confederate armies, often thanks to the scholarship of the New Men in the post-war world, no tally of the dead would be complete without an examination of the Anglo-Canadian forces. Roughly 140,000 British soldiers and sailors would serve at one time or another in North America from California to the West Indies, whether in garrison, on sea or in the armies in Canada. These were supported by 145,000 militia from the colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Though it was mostly the soldiers in Canada who fought, some West Indies regiments did serve important garrison duties, which does include them in the tally of the dead. 35,000 Canadians died of all causes during the war, mainly from disease. 15,400[1] soldiers and sailors would die in combat or from wounds on the British side, while 35,500 would die from disease or accidents, including those in American prison camps. While these numbers are considerably smaller than the American losses, the British forces involved were also much smaller, in limited campaigns, with a better understanding of camp sanitation compared to the Crimean War.
Nor were the innocent spared. Whether the 85 year old widow Judith C. Henry killed by cannons at Bull Run or 19 year old William Tempest, shot at Davenport Ridge, civilians were hardly immune to the hard hand of war. The exact number of civilian deaths and the reasons for them are harder to qualify. Modern estimates place the number of dead at roughly 50,000 dead free citizens and enslaved noncombatants. That means at least 52,000 civilians died during the war. The true number may indeed be higher[2].
While estimates are difficult to discern, many who died of disease while refugees could be counted as civilian losses, but those who died from military action or persecution by military authorities are much easier to calculate as civilian casualties. Only the nascent Canadian colonies kept a firm tabulation of civilian casualties, stating that 2,089 civilians died from “Yankee cruelties” which can be considered an accounting of hostages killed in the anti-guerilla campaigns, but also those who died in battles such as Delaware Crossroads and Davenport Ridge and numerous skirmishes in between.
Many inflated claims have been floated over the years for the number of the dead, but today there is a rough consensus of how many people were killed by the conflict. All told, at least 830,000 people died between 1861 and 1866.
When all this is considered, roughly 2.5% of the American population in 1860 died during the course of the war. That roughly 1% of the Canadian population died at the same time is staggering when considering the steady climb in population numbers otherwise during this period. It could be reasonably speculated that between 1861-66 roughly 3% of the population of North America comprising the United States and modern Canada died in this whole period[3].
Though much smaller compared to the casualties of the early 20th century, it is still a sobering testament to the ferocity of the engagement across the North American continent…” - To Arms!: The Great American War, Sheldon Foote, University of Boston 1999.
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1] If that does seem small, the battle casualties are three times those incurred in the Crimean War for instance. The larger number of disease deaths includes prison camps and anyone unlucky enough to come down with camp diseases in the West Indies.
2] This is based on James MacPherson’s estimation of 50,000 civilian deaths in the war. If I included the estimates of slaves who died, it would be higher but those are much harder to verify.
3] If I included the number of people killed in Mexico during the French invasion as part of North America, it would be smaller as a whole proportion, but still nearly 900,000 people overall. This is a massive death toll.
Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
- Start date
What a catastrophe.... Especially for the Confederates, who had much less people to start with.
Ha! As if both sides wouldn't send in people to try and influence the results...
I guess I never really noticed.
But alternate!Shelby Foote is either a northerner, or the Confederacy is not the banality of all evil in 1999. 😆
The state as a whole will vote on Union and Secession, with whoever gets a majority choosing. Either Kentucky is part of the United States, or it is a part of the Confederacy. Neither side will accept anything less than the whole.
This is indeed only slightly less worse than OTL. But its still a swathe of dead young men, and many more crippled besides. The United States is slightly better off as a whole, but with almost half a million men dead, its as close to a catastrophe as you can get. There hundreds of thousands crippled as well, meaning no one is going to look back on the war as anything but a bloody fiasco. Even the winners are bloodied.
Perish the thought! Who in the 1860s would rig an election!
Well, let's just say they never get as bad as the Nazis, but they'd be considered a watchword for villains in media nonetheless. However, its hard to hate them too much because after a nation gets ground to paste and changed quite dramatically.
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“So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being every, where made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians. In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties.” - Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Chapter X
And there you have it. The culmination of years of research, writing and speculation. This marks the end of the Great American War of 1861-65. When I set out to write this oh so long ago I had many different ideas on how the war might go. The initial premise of the whole TL was “If Britain and the US went to war in 1862 neither side can run the board in a year” which was, more or less, an attempt to dispel many old arguments that one or the other would have a huge advantage from the get go, hence why some of the TL is a very meticulous military examination down to regiments and companies and individual ships. I tried to be as realistic as possible into what was probable and what each side could realistically achieve based on both past history and recent combat experience from both armies and as deep as I could dive into the personalities of the various commanders and politicians.
My research and further deep dives into history grounded this a lot more and moderated some of my views. However, I stand by many of them and my readings have only entrenched certain ideas about how such a cataclysmic war between the United States and Great Britain in the midst of the Civil War might have spun out. I remain most confident in the months from the outbreak of war from February 1862 to July 1862 in how I think such a war would have gone. From there it was a lot of value calls on what I think might happen, and I freely admit the war could have gone differently, or even longer. Hell, it could have ended in 1863 with the capture of Washington by the joint Anglo-Confederate offensive, now that would have made for a different story! I might tackle a chapter dealing with three different scenarios I envisioned on that, but for now I want a rest from an epic war story.
In truth I could end Wrapped in Flames here, it is the culmination of what I’ve been working towards. However, I won’t do that. The future of Canada TTL, the relations between all these nations, and of course Mexico, is going to be told. I am, however, going to start moving the war sections into the “Finished Timeline” section, and include little moments that I was either too busy to get around to or merely alluded to in the course of the story. So get ready for some naval battles on the Great Lakes I didn’t get around to writing, a forgotten campaign, and of course some little items that will round out a bit of the war.
Meanwhile, the TL will backtrack to July 1865 for some items, then we will be moving into 1866 and then the tumultuous years of 1867 and 1868!
Thank you to everyone who enjoyed Wrapped in Flames so far, and here’s to more stories in the future!
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About 3.5% of the Confederate population died overall. Mostly men.
And I suppose you could consider this Part I of TTL, and where we're going could possibly get to a Part II, though I'd have to decide on the cut off point.
I personally would love to see some alternate scenarios on where the war could have gone differently.
It feels almost surreal that we've finally reached this point in the story. I've literally been reading this story since before I was even a member. I can't wait to see where it goes next & congrats on reaching this point after so many years!
I am curious though. Did you always plan to have the CSA win their independence or was that up in the air for a while?
It feels almost surreal that we've finally reached this point in the story. I've literally been reading this story since before I was even a member. I can't wait to see where it goes next & congrats on reaching this point after so many years!
I am curious though. Did you always plan to have the CSA win their independence or was that up in the air for a while?
I am really curious about your ideas for the next part!
I hope that you will tackle Ottoman Empire in your timeline, or your “constantly asking what will happen to any state related to Turkey in some timeline” friend will be very sad…
I hope that you will tackle Ottoman Empire in your timeline, or your “constantly asking what will happen to any state related to Turkey in some timeline” friend will be very sad…
I want to start off by saying how much I have absolutely loved this timeline, it’s the reason I made an account on this website and I’m always so excited to see updates for it. Next I want to say, I think this is one of the most well down alternative timelines I’ve seen with British intervention. I’ve seen way to many like Robert Conroy or Tsouras who postulate that the United States is just far to powerful for the British Empire which absolutely is not the case in this time period. I think you did amazing at showcasing how the strength of the United States was growing and would show that it would be a hard and brutal fight for all sides. I am incredibly interested in where this timeline goes from here, as I can see McClellan losing the 1868 election and I’m even more interested in who the Confederate candidates will be. I look forward to the future of this timeline! Thank you for a great read
Like everyone else here I am exceptionally pleased you will be continuing the TL past the War of 1862 and will be looking forward to seeing the wider global impact of this TL.
As for your cutoff point, well we're not letting you go until you reach modern times at the dawn of the 21st Century minimum. You made this excellent bed, now you'll lie in it to our satisfaction 😁
Then that we shall get! Maybe to round out 1865!
Many thanks! And thank you for reading for so long! Hard to believe I've been writing/tweaking this scenario for almost a decade! Glad to reach an endpoint after so long! Glad to be continuing on too!
That was actually a toss up. When I set out I wasn't sure if British intervention without the specific goal of Confederate independence would be enough to tip the scales. As I got into the weeds, the strengths of the various armies, commanders, and the likely (IMO) avenues of attack pursued by all sides became clear, I realized the Confederacy had a chance to win this one. Killing Sherman during the Siege of Corinth cinched the deal for me personally since it was his ruthless war in the West which helped cave the Confederacy in through 1864.
I will say that in the back of my mind I'd always assumed Lincoln would lose the 1864 election after signing an unfavorable peace with the British, but my research on McClellan did let me know he was a Union man, not a Copperhead. Deeper research though revealed him to be a simply abysmal political animal who would have, almost certainly, been surrounded by men who could outmaneuver him in politics like Lee could outfox him on the battlefield. That he had a military/engineer mind and often sent others to do the work for him during the 1864 election cycle (while dodging as many actual politicians as he could) meant that he would not have a strong hand in dealing with the Confederacy, and he had no way to reign in the Copperheads. Almost inevitably he would have worked himself into a corner either where he ended up pursuing peace against his will, or where he would have gone back to war but somehow botched it in this scenario.
He could have still won the war, but if the grinding defeats of 1864 had continued to, say, 1866, I think a Democratic House would have forced peace on him due to a lack of progress. However, if he'd held his nose and worked with War Democrats and Abolitionists, the material advantages of the Union could have still told against the Confederacy eventually, but at an atrocious cost in blood and treasure.
I am really curious about your ideas for the next part!
I hope that you will tackle Ottoman Empire in your timeline, or your “constantly asking what will happen to any state related to Turkey in some timeline” friend will be very sad…
I do have to brush up on my Ottoman history of the 1860s! They have a big role to play in the 1870s I will say, the "Sick Man of Europe" is not going to be a whole trope in the 1880s.
It is thrilling to see people say they joined this site because of Wrapped in Flames! I'm glad its brought people to the board, and given more exposure to the website overall! Thank you for all the comments and enjoying it so far!
It's going to be fun to expand beyond the 1860s, and I have much of the 1870s in rough note form, but lots of firm ways I'm ending everything up to 1869, so there will be plenty in the pipeline for late 2023 and early 2024! I'll probably do an encapsulation of the War (maybe a wikibox, but I am not good at those) with the major battles and campaigns listed from 1861-65, plus the treaties and negotiations, just to help people with all the background without having to read, oh, 112 Chapters and about 350k words
However, I'll round out 1865 quickly, first with this post mentioned, a pair of "lessons learned" chapters to show what each combatant took away - a bit of the future of warfare
- then get the ball rolling for the events in the last six months of 1865 and on to 1866, which I will probably breeze through compared to 1862-65!!Oh that's certainly the plan! Lots of ramifications to explore in Mexico, Europe and Asia that I've alluded to...
Tell you what, I promise to get us to at least the first King in Canada
Alas much whip cracking to be heard in the future...
Three hurrahs for our author! @EnglishCanuck
In my opinion, this timeline, this story, really is currently one of the best on this website. I've said it in the past but I'm going to say it again: the quality of the researchs, the attention to details and the quality of the writing are all excellent. I enjoyed the narrative parts even more, especially in those early 'setting up' chapters with Lincoln and his cabinet and the Canadian backroom perspective.
It will remain one of my favourites alternate history reads and if/when this becomes a novel, I'll make sure to get my hands on a copy!
Thank you for these great seven (!!) years, it was a very interesting ride indeed. Even though this is fiction, I think you contributed to improve our knowledge of the American Civil War and of trans-Atlantic politics during the mid 19th century to a good degree, and you certainly made me dig the subject even more!
I'm eager to see what you have for us in the future. Whatever the format you decide on, I know I want to hear that story.
Now that the War is over, let's rejoice!
In my opinion, this timeline, this story, really is currently one of the best on this website. I've said it in the past but I'm going to say it again: the quality of the researchs, the attention to details and the quality of the writing are all excellent. I enjoyed the narrative parts even more, especially in those early 'setting up' chapters with Lincoln and his cabinet and the Canadian backroom perspective.
It will remain one of my favourites alternate history reads and if/when this becomes a novel, I'll make sure to get my hands on a copy!
Thank you for these great seven (!!) years, it was a very interesting ride indeed. Even though this is fiction, I think you contributed to improve our knowledge of the American Civil War and of trans-Atlantic politics during the mid 19th century to a good degree, and you certainly made me dig the subject even more!
I'm eager to see what you have for us in the future. Whatever the format you decide on, I know I want to hear that story.
Now that the War is over, let's rejoice!